I spent a couple of days over the Christmas break messing around with an old 6-chord JubelTöne zither that I found at a car boot sale. It’s seen better days, and has not been tuned. This is what happened:

In preparation for a new project I recently went through my archives of field recordings, fragments of various sound bits collected over the years. I’ve recorded a lot of pointless audio, it’s true, so I ended up deleting a whole bunch of stuff that was badly recorded, or just boring, but in amongst it all were some things that were worth keeping. So I thought that with a bit of editing, some of them might be interesting for other people to hear. I’ve compiled them into three volumes, because no-one wants to be presented with a single, huge archive dump, do they? Plus, of course, creating three volumes means a more impressive discography (and more entries on discogs.com).

I’ve recently been messing around with an old three-quarter-size guitar I found at the car boot sale. It was £2, had no strings, saddle or nut, so I added those myself, and given that it’s quite difficult to play properly (not that I actually have much interest in doing so), I’ve been figuring out what else it can do. Here are the results of some of my investigations. Preparations include fidget spinners, paper clips, sandpaper, wool, suction cups, a cactus and roll-on deodorant. It some of it seems a bit ‘warts and all’, well, that’s the nature of research.

Like one of those infuriating rural bus services that publish no music for years and then suddenly release two albums at once, I’m delighted to announce that despite not having published any music for years, I’m suddenly releasing two albums at once. I’ll write more about these later (maybe – no-one’s actually reading this, are they?), but for now here are the plain facts:

While driving along one of Britain’s motorways recently, I was overtaken by a lorry that was prominently decorated with the web address SPLOGISTICS.CO.UK. It amused me because SPLOGISTICS is a funny word, but it was especially amusing because my initials are SP, so if I had a logistics company, I’d definitely want to call it SPLOGISTICS. So, on returning home I immediately established the following companies. Their main line of business should be self-explanatory.

I like egg custards. The Ancient Greeks believed that the best egg custard was the one you’ve just eaten. Inscriptions found at Yaxchilan, meanwhile, clearly indicate that the Mayans considered the best egg custard to be the one you are about to eat. I subscribe to neither of these systems, and believe instead in the power of empiricism.

There are three (and only three) components to a standard UK egg custard:
1. The pastry: that noble and unheralded support layer, quietly carrying out its duties with pride and grace.
2. The custard: that champion heavyweight that we’ve all come to see, that we remember watching on Grandstand as a kid, but that’s still knocking ’em out cold in town halls and leisure centres throughout provincial Britain.
3. The nutmeg: that cheeky young scamp from faraway lands that occasionally appears at your window, mouthing unintelligible words while you attempt to watch the news.

I once had in mind to write a comprehensive guide to the country’s egg custards. Not just a survey of my favourites, or the ones near me, but a rigorous analysis of every commercially available custard in the land. Even given the homogenisation of most UK High Streets, though, it’s a huge and dietarily thankless undertaking, and I have reluctantly added this to the list of things that are just not going to happen, along with learning to play guitar, getting into the album charts, tidying my office etc etc. This move brings both sadness and relief. Having said that, I still have a rough idea of my favourites. In the same way that we like to choose some personal cultural standards to wheel out when asked, instead of having to consider them from scratch each time (favourite album, film, that sort of thing), I have a best egg custard. Best 5, in fact. I am compelled to write all this now because the current number 1 was discovered this very week – I could have wept when I first bit into it – and discovering a new favourite anything is a big deal for some. Here they are:

Supermarket egg custards are sometimes pretty good. M&S are the best, I think. The flipside of all this is the worst. I’m generally fairly well disposed towards Morrisons, as supermarkets go, but their egg custards have never, after multiple attempts, been anything other than joyless.

Here’s a quick guide to some of the best new music due for release later this year.

New albums by:
DJ Unexpected Item In Bagging Area
The You Must Be Logged In To Do Thats
The Restart Now / Restart Laters
/X\(‘-‘)/X\
She Takes A Single Paperclip & The What Happens Next Will Amaze Yous
This Vehicle Is Reversing